by ‘bard of Salford’: John Cooper Clarke
Photo with kind permission from rock, nightlife and 'Getting Away With It' photography legend Derek Ridgers
an x-film extra’s extra
i exit when i’m ex’d
i get it in the neck
i get my check
but i don’t get what comes next
I got my break in the ‘frisco quake
clarke gable got the lead
they said ‘make like a piece of steak…
lay on that plate and bleed’
swine herds and hunch backs
led to bigger things
i was ponchas pilot’s punch bag
you remember king of king’s
understudy studies scripts
and stunt men dice with doom
you found me in a gothic crypt
or in some squalid room
where clint eastwood kicks my teeth in
several times a day
i’m the best dead body in the business
i don’t have much to say
except… aaahhh, ooohhh, ahh, ohh, uhh, ahh, uhhh
and ohh, ahh, nhhh, ahh ohh and thank you lord
what can you say on the end of a sword
you just run out of breath
i carried seven ceasars
around seven cities of gold
i was the one who didn’t whip Jesus
in the greatest story ever told
fake snakes, mock crocks
and killers cut my throat
that’s me in the pine box
i know all about boats
i was on the titanic
i did what was required
and i was the first to panic
on the day the earth caught fire
hacksaw blades and hand grenades
dum dum bullets and darts
when pagans raid the stockade
i get mangled by their carts
i fall from trains and torture dames
just to keep in trim
I get slain on memory lane
and the people say ‘oh it’s him’
it was in this third rate thriller
i actually got to talk
saying ‘look… the killer gorillas,
they’re eating up New York’
i ride this phony pony
in a place a bit like the world
in the eyes of adults only
i never get the girl
tarantulas invade my bed
ohh it’s wonderful
i’m a talking head… full of lead
blublblublblublblublblub
i scream all the way to the chair
i scream in the face of tanks
i take the stairway to the stairs
and i scream all the way to the banks
photogenic passion
impales me on its knife
hero’s made from fashion
but dying’s a job for life
